Researchers look to see how elevated housing in Florida stood up to Hurricane Michael

t's commonplace in U.S. coastal areas and floodplains to upraise homes in order to keep living areas dry in case the water rises. However, mobile and wood homes standing a few feet off the ground could be a lot more susceptible to winds exerting force from underneath and increasing the force of loads on walls and ceilings—a possibility that has been studied little, until now.

Elaina Sutley, assistant professor of civil, environmental & architectural engineering at KU, is performing the work with a new $45,000 RAPID grant from the National Science Foundation.

"Hurricane Michael made landfall on October 10, with wind speeds within a few miles per hour of a Category 5, and impacted the Florida panhandle," she said. "This was the most powerful hurricane that has affected that part of Florida on record and one of the most powerful in history

Today, a researcher from the University of Kansas is investigating elevated residential buildings in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael's impact of the Florida panhandle, where recorded wind speeds reached and exceeded design wind loads along the coast.

Shell’s recent success in the US Gulf of Mexico includes its deepwater Dover discovery on Mississippi Canyon 612, reported last year, near its Appomattox platform. The well was drilled by the Deepwater Poseidon ultra-deepwater drillship. Sources: Shell, Transocean.

In lieu of the traditional shovel groundbreaking, Miami City Commission chair Ken Russell, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez and Miami city manager Emilio T. Gonzalez (pictured l-r) perform the ceremonial water toss to mark the start of the first Miami Forever Bond project tackling flooding and sea-level rise. (Photo by City of Miami Office of Communications)